My thoughts on how to stop phone theft in Juba
4 min read
Corruption in South Sudan
By Abel Majur Leek, Bor, Jonglei State
December 12, 2015 (SSB) —- I have heard different stories about people who lost their phones either by their own carelessness or by no fault of theirs. I, also have lost my phone once, but the focus will be on ways to checkmate re-use of stolen phones. Imagine you trying to shop in a large mall or market and before you are done with your shopping, your phone is gone. The truth is that your phone can be stolen anywhere, office, bus, mall, stadium etc.
One thing we should know, for those who do not know, is that virtually every phone has an anti-theft feature. This anti-theft feature helps the owner of the phone to prevent the person who stole the phone from using it. It also allows the owner to send messages to the stolen phone to either block, delete stored data or damage the phone.
The Anti-theft feature also allows you to locate the stolen phone on the map. Some apps also come with this Anti-theft feature.
The problem is that most users of phones do not see the need to turn on this Anti-theft feature. We all should start appreciating the usefulness of the Anti-theft feature, which will go a long way to curb the activities of phone theft/swindlers.
When we finally get most users to turn on the Anti-theft feature, another problem is that of phone unlocking softwares and its users. I recently went to buy a new phone at a Phone Shop, and I asked the owner why I cannot retrieve or stop the phone from being used by another person, and he replied that there is no way to retrieve a stolen phone since the person who stole can easily unlock the phone from any phone unlocking operator.
I was short of words to say the least. Even when your phone is locked after being stolen, the person who stole the phone will take it to a phone technician, who would help to unlock the phone for a fee, or the person who stole the phone would unlock the phone by himself if he/she has the unlocking software or has access to a website that unlocks blocked phones.
This is where the need to ban phone unlocking softwares arises. Phone technicians should be treated with utmost importance all over the world especially in developing nations. This is a clarion call to security agencies especially those whose roles are inter-twinned with phone theft, to act urgently to stem the ugly tide.
The national assembly or parliament should also make laws prohibiting the use of these phone unlocking softwares, with adequate punishment spelt out for offenders. A lot of us are guilty of using these phone unlocking softwares and similar softwares, but stopping the use of these softwares voluntarily or by government action is the way forward.
The fallout of following the above listed steps will result in the phone thefts not being able to unlock stolen phones, thereby making the stolen phone useless to the person who stole it. When a lot of phone stealers are faced with the same fate, the resultant effect will be tremendous decline in phone theft nationwide. It is very possible, when we give it a try.
The writer is doing postgraduate (Master of Science in System design& software Development, He can be reach abeleek2@gmail.com
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